By Sara Finegan

I’ve written about what inclusion most definitely isn’t, and about what special education most definitely should be, and even made some comments about what special education instruction in a general education environment is supposed to look like.

That’s all well and good, if you’re looking to get a taste off of the menu that is Special Education, but it doesn’t constitute a meal, nor, more importantly, does it give you the recipes with which to create one.

What we all really want to know these days is what “Accessing Grade-Level Standards” looks like, whether it takes place in a separate classroom or in a general ed class.

Let me give it a shot, via a hypothetical set of students with IEPs.  Let’s follow this mythical cohort through the fourth and fifth grades, not because those grade levels are the most typical or constitute a more crucial pair of years than any other, but because that’s what I’ve been looking at for the last month, and unless there’s an offer of chocolate, we’re all going to look at things for the next few pages through my eyes.

The Cast of Characters

We begin with the diverse mix of students, whom we encounter at the beginning of the fourth grade:

Matt is a cheerful, restless student with mental retardation.  He knows 50 sight words, can count to 30, and likes to listen to stories.  He has limited social skills, and needs a high level of structure in order to be able to participate in any large-group activities.  Matt, who has limited verbal skills, loves to identify and label things and has an excellent memory for the names of things he’s learning about.  He can copy words and sentences, but does not construct sentences of his own without a great deal of support.  Matt is easily frustrated in a large-group environment and often disrupts class by knocking objects off desks and chewing on other students’ zippers and hoods.

Alex is a highly-functioning student with autism and ADHD.  He has difficulty with visual tracking and this, combined with his attention deficits, makes reading extremely difficult.  He reads reluctantly and is easily distracted from the text.  He has an enormous vocabulary and can dictate complex paragraphs, but the mechanics of writing is difficult for him due to dysgraphia.  Alex has excellent cognitive and reasoning skills and can apply what he’s learned across multiple subjects.  He is easily overwhelmed in large groups, needs a lot of repeated drill and small group, guided work in order to learn new skills, and needs to keep moving.  If he sits for more than five minutes, he begins to “zone out” and gets lost in his own world.

Freddy has moderate-functioning autism and mild mental retardation.  He perseverates on whatever he was watching on television while he ate breakfast.  He is anxious to please adults and, while he enjoys being with his classmates, has few friendships and doesn’t show much interest in others’ needs or likes and dislikes.  He remembers every new word he learns in his reading, and as a result, his sight words vocabulary is enormous.  His decoding skills are less strong, but he is currently reading at about the beginning second-grade level.  Fred loves to take the morning survey in class, and carries his clipboard around to each student, tabulating their responses to the day’s questions.  He can write a sentence describing the results of the survey.

Ben is an English Language learner with expressive and receptive language deficits, auditory memory deficits, and working memory deficits.  He has many friends, encourages people to do their best, but is also easily distracted and can disrupt his table by making faces, tossing paper wads, and chatting when lessons are going on.  Ben’s writing skills are very limited:  he struggles to be consistent with singulars and plurals as well as verb tenses, and uses very bland, generic vocabulary.  His thinking is not particularly organized and he jumps from topic to topic in conversation and writing.  Ben reads at the second grade level and has good literal comprehension.

Martina is the class artist.  She spends hours working on craft projects and can be found drawing and making costumes for paper dolls in her spare time.  She works extremely slowly at academic tasks, which in the past frustrated her general education teachers, and, as a result, caused her to lose confidence in her own abilities.  She reads at the third grade level and has excellent critical thinking skills.  Her writing is less strong, as she lacks organization and structure, and her spelling is poor.  Like Ben, Martina’s primary language is Spanish.  Martina takes three times as long as anyone else to complete assignments, but is thorough and methodical and neat, and rarely makes mistakes.  She excels at social studies and invariably wins the class Jeopardy! Games.

Toby is an excellent reader and thinker who lacks executive functioning skills.  His desk is a mess, his work is all over the room, he loses everything, and he forgets his homework four days out of five.   He is three grades behind in math and reads at grade level.  He rushes through most assignments and pays attention to about 45% of what is going on during instruction.  He is articulate, uses powerful vocabulary in speech and in writing, and participates actively in class discussions.

Amanda is  a very bright kiddo with a bubbly personality.  She struggles with multiple-step tasks and her working memory is extremely limited.  She has low numeracy and, despite years of work, doesn’t know what makes ten, cannot remember her multiplication facts, and cannot do grade-level math.  She reads at the third grade level and, although her spelling is atrocious, writes descriptive pieces about topics that interest her.  When it comes to narrative writing, she exhibits less skills – her tendency is to skip details and important parts of the story, leaving the reader to try to figure out what’s going on.  Amanda is very emotional and struggles with friendship skills – she prefers to play with kids who are 2-3 years younger than she is.  She has severe ADHD and medication helps a bit, but not as much as for some other kids in the class.

Sam has Asperger Syndrome (which is now considered a mild version of Autism Spectrum Disorder) and ADHD.  He also is a profoundly anxious child with limited social skills.  He is easily frustrated by academic tasks and has difficulty paying attention and understanding what is going on in class.  He loves science and sports, and will listen to anyone read stories for hours on end.  Sam needs repeated review and drill on a daily basis in order to master new skills or understand new concepts.  After 20 minutes or so in a large-group, fast-paced setting, Sam often has a melt-down, and either tantrums or cries, which causes his peers to make fun of him.

Grant has moderate-functioning autism with accompanying hyperlexia. He can decode any text but doesn’t understand much of what he reads.  He loves Sponge Bob and The Doors, and marching to his internal beat.  Grant doesn’t do well in groups or cooperative learning activities but is an excellent sight words and spelling coach.   When it comes to auditory processing, you can forget it:  Grant doesn’t process much of what he hears, but has amazing visual perceptual skills and remembers everything he sees.

These nine students can and will learn grade-level science and social studies in the fourth and fifth grades.

Fourth and Fifth Grade Science and Social Studies Standards:

Minerals

In California, fourth grade science includes a unit on Magnets and Electricity, one on Rocks and Minerals, and one on Biomes and the Food Chain.  Social Studies focuses on the history of California.  Fifth grade science involves learning about the human circulatory, digestive and respiratory systems, water and the water cycle and the weather.   In Social Studies, students learn about American history, from the Meso-American civilizations to just before the Civil War.

Whether the kids are in a Special Day Class or mainstreamed into a general education class, they will need differentiated instruction and assignments.  This is what the fourth grade science class might look like:

Rocks, Minerals  and Erosion Unit:

Types of Rock:

• The entire class sings the Rock Cycle Song every day at least once.  The lyrics, sung to the tune of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”, provide an excellent way of memorizing the facts about Sedimentary, Igneous and Metamorphic rocks.
• All of the kids have the opportunity to work on three hands-on projects:  Make your Own Sediment; Sedimentary Rock In A Bottle; and  Make a Metamorphic Rock.
• Matt, Freddy and Sam read easy-reader books such as “Rocks”, and “Crystals”.  Grant, Alex, and Ben participate in a guided reading group to read “The Rock Family” and “Digging for Dinosaurs.”   All of them gather with the class for a read-aloud of “Dinosaur Hunters” and Martina and Toby serve as table leaders when the class discusses fossils.
• The teacher has prepared two sets of sorting cards with photos of different kinds of rocks (limestone, sandstone, slate, agate, quartz, etc) and cards with the names of rocks.  Every day, kids get together with a partner to match the words to the photos, or to use the cards for a Memory game.  Students use a classroom chart or, in the case of Toby, Ben, Alex, Martina, Amanda and Grant, their “rocks and minerals journal” in which they’ve filled in graphic organizers about different types of rocks and minerals.
  

  Sorting cards

• Freddy, Sam, and Matt like to take the teacher’s collection of small rocks and minerals and sort them, putting them in labeled squares on a 3×3 piece of wood.   Amanda and Martina and Toby often supervise, prompting the three boys to speak in complete sentences about at least three of the rocks they sort.  (ex: “This is a piece of quartz.  It is pink.”;  “Sandstone is a sedimentary rock.”)
• Matt, Sam and Freddy complete a sequencing activity based on the text “A Rock Collection”, which the teacher has copied, cut up, and laminated.  After listening to a peer or an aide read the story, they work independently or together to put the story parts in the proper order.  In the meantime, Martina, Amanda and Toby, having read the story, write a summary of it.  Alex and Ben also write a summary, but they use a word list provided by the teacher and a sentence starter for each paragraph.

Erosion and Changes to the Earth’s Surface

• All of the students listen to several read-alouds by the teacher using picture books about glaciers, volcanos, and earthquakes.
• Freddy and Sam sit with an aide and read “After the Flood” together.  The aide helps them make a list of things that floods and water do to the earth’s surface.
• The kids watch a short film about the San Francisco Earthquake.  A peer or aide reads from the textbook to the kids about earthquakes and the earth’s surface.  The higher level kids work in partners to answer questions from the textbook, while the lower level kids start working on sorting cards and sight words using the vocabulary for the unit.
• Matt, Freddy, and Sam read about what to do in an earthquake.  They work with an aide to make posters to display in the classroom telling people what to do.
• The kids watch a short film about the Grand Canyon.  The higher level kids create a thinking map in their journals about what they learned about water and wind erosion.  The lower level kids get coloring pages about the Grand Canyon to color and, when they’re done, write a sentence about each picture at the bottom.
• The higher level kids complete a cloze activity about glaciers.  All of the kids work on daily review activities, identifying types of events and weather that affect the earth’s surface and whether they are fast or slow influences.
• After a mini-lesson about how water affects the Earth’s surface (weathering, transport, and deposition), the kids participate in a variety of activities in which they identify which part of the process pertains to a photo or event.
• All of the kids do a culminating report on either volcanos, wind and water erosion, glaciers, or earthquakes.
  • The higher level kids work in small groups to complete graphic organizers as a pre-writing activity, and then, once they’ve completed their first drafts, participate in editing and revising activities using a class-generated rubric.  They are expected to type their reports on the computer and use spell check and  any other aids such as a thesaurus and grammar check, if available.
  • The lower level kids use templates which pictures to identify and sentence starters about each of the different things they’ve learned.  All but Matt are expected to write one general statement and give 2 supporting details for each fact about their topic.  Matt gets a set of labels on which the teacher has typed vocabulary words for his topic and he sticks them underneath the pictures on his graphic organizer template.

accessing grade-level · ADHD · autism · decoding · differentiated instruction · dysgraphia · executive functioning · expressive language · grade-level standards · hyperlexia · Inclusion · low numeracy · modifications · receptive language · Sara Finegan · science · social studies · sorting cards · standards · vocabulary

By Sara Finegan 

         Kids with expressive and receptive language deficits need to learn how to use and understand words.    The speech section of the brain is an amazing thing, and synapses can be created, formed, and reformed without medical intervention.  It is by using and reusing words, practicing them in different contexts over and over again, that our students can overcome, or at least significantly diminish their language disabilities. 

         One of our favorite ways in the classroom is to play Jeopardy.

          I use Jeopardy games primarily for Social Studies, but it can be adapted for any content area.  All you need is some sort of board (I took a large portable bulletin board or white board, covered it with contact paper, and it can stand on an easel quite easily), a document camera, those little envelopes they put in books at the library (or laminated construction paper envelopes you affix to the board), and index cards. 

         I keep five columns of four card slots each on the board at all times.  Then I can switch around the categories and the answer cards with ease.

NOTE:  Our school district is putting smart boards, or Promethean Activboard smart boards in all of our classrooms.  (Lucky us!) This is going to change the way I do Jeopardy because I can set up a Jeopardy game right on the computer and work with it on the smart board.  But I haven’t done that yet.

         If you’re not familiar with the television game show, Jeopardy, it’s essentially a trivia game where the answers are provided and the contestants have to formulate the correct questions.  In a demanding classroom, we play Jeopardy at least once a week, sometimes twice, depending on where we are in a social studies unit, and our games last anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour and a half, depending on how much fun the kids are having.  And they have a lot of fun.

          All of the “trivia” in our games consists of information from our current social studies unit. 

TIP:  As the year goes on, our Jeopardy game may expand to include prior units.  Thus, at the end of last year, one category was about ancient India, one about ancient China, one about ancient Mesopotamia, and on category was just about vocabulary related to history.

         Most of the time, the categories are something like this:  geography, lifestyle, religion, leaders.  But that is not cut in stone; we often have a vocabulary category, one on military matters, one about trade, one about inventions.  It just depends, as I said, on where we are in the unit.

          I will preface my description of the game by saying that you should not have high expectations at first.  At the beginning of the year, students will just not do very well and will need lots and lots of coaching and extra time.  Even later in the year, in the early part of a unit, kids just aren’t as familiar with the facts as they will be.  What’s amazing is that within a matter of a day or two, the kids are really learning, integrating the facts, internalizing the information, which is better than simple memorization.  And did I mention they are having FUN?

How do I know this?  Because years later, my students are able to discuss with ease historical facts and ideas and concepts that they learned long ago in our classroom.  My student teacher, on a tour of the school by one of my students this year, was treated to a long description of  prehistoric humans and the development of key concepts including domestication of animals and plants, inventions of new tools, and ideas about religion and nature.  Another of my students from years ago recently texted me that he got an A in world history in high school because he had so much background knowledge from our sixth and seventh grade history class.

         Jeopardy is played, at the beginning, with teams of two or three students.  You’ll find that as the year progresses, many students want to play alone, and others will still want a partner.  This is fine.  It’s great, even.  And you’ll be amazed at who emerges as the stars of the game, confident in their ability to formulate correct questions properly.

         I have prewritten the answers on index cards and put them in the slots or envelopes on the Jeopardy board before we begin. (when the kids see me changing the cards earlier in the day, they get excited knowing that we’re going to play – they really look forward to it.)

          The first team picks a category and an amount (I have 100, 200, 300 and 500 points as our amounts, but you can use any numbers you like).  I pull the appropriate card, and show it under the document camera.  (This is a big help to those kids who are visual learners and need to see the words of the “answer,” not just hear them.)  I remind the team to put their response in question form.  I don’t use a timer, because I want the kids to feel pretty relaxed as they figure out their response and put it in the proper words.

 An example of an “answer” might be:  Wheat and barley.  The proper question could be:  “What grains did the ancient Mesopotamian farmers raise?” or “What are two grains domesticated by Mesopotamian  farmers?” 

         Periodically, I do a mini lesson or reminder lesson about clues we can use to determine the question form.  Sometimes, the kids need reminders, for example, that an answer that contains a date needs a question that starts with “when”, or that a location implies a “where” question.  Often, however, I’ll catch kids coaching each other on this, even if they are on different teams.

         According to our former Speech Language Pathologist, the effort of thought it takes the kids to use the answer/fact to form a question is a challenge that results in significant improvements in their speech skills.  We’ve noticed a huge jump in confidence, mastery of facts and concepts with great ease, and a terrific increase in use of rich vocabulary and complex sentences.  

         We also have a classroom full of history buffs, who are proud to demonstrate their mastery and expertise  both orally and in writing. 

          In a demanding classroom, kids talk about information in a variety of ways instead of just repeating back what we tell them.

complex sentences · demanding classroom · expressive language · high expectations · Jeopardy · language deficits · learning disabilities · learning disabled · mastery · Promethean board · receptive language · rigor · rigorous instruction · Sara Finegan · special education · speech language pathologist · speech skills · standards · vocabulary

 By Sara Finegan

         A huge number of students with IEPs, particularly in elementary school, have expressive and/or receptive language deficits. 

         Difficulty finding the right words can mean that a child struggles to speak in complete sentences, but most commonly, I think, it manifests in a child’s inability to come up with specific verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs.   What does this look like in a classroom?  It looks like this: 

• Excessive use of what I call “cottonball” words – vague, generic words such as “things”, “stuff”, “that one”;
• Use of bland verbs such as “went”, “does”, “says”; and
• An absence of most adjectives and almost no use of adverbs at all.

         Difficulty in understanding words is a little different.  I will never forget working with one of my students on a math word problem, trying to figure out where he was getting stuck, and finally realizing that he really didn’t understand the difference between “each” and “every”.  (What do we call these, distributive adjectives?)  This presents a problem not just in math, but in science and other subject areas that require students to follow directions, visualize, or comprehend text.

         We teachers need to recognize both types of disabilities, and carefully craft ways to teach students to use language, and ways to cope with their deficits.  If we do not do both, we are going to shortchange some very bright kids who simply are lacking the right tools to make it known.

Sorting Cards for new vocabulary 

         One of the first interventions I ever used in my classroom is one that I continue to implement on an almost-daily basis.  It’s one of the simplest ideas, and the materials are cheap and always right at hand:  markers and index cards.  I call them Sorting Cards, because they are, well, cards that my students sort.  They also do other things with them, and I’ll explain that as we go along here.

         How they work:  A sorting card is an index card with a word written on it.  I make cards for every new vocabulary word in social studies and science.  I also make cards of verbs associated with the vocabulary words.  Thus, for example, if in our study of an ancient civilization the new words are:   loom, weaver, pottery, potter, fabric, flax, craftsman, agora, peddler, merchant – the verbs might be:  created, manufactured, designed, wove, sold, bought.    As we proceed through a unit, we add cards about farming and crops, government, religion, etc. 

         At first, I just have the kids read through the cards in pairs or small groups, familiarizing them with the vocabulary as new sight words.   I want them to recognize the words automatically, as that will eliminate any struggles to decode the words during later activities.

         Then I start having them create sentences using the words.  I might model:  If I take “agora”, “merchant”, “sold”, I can say “merchants sold goods at the agora.”  My aide or I will work with them at first, then gradually withdraw to  the kids make up their own sentences.  The particularly good sentences get written down on chart paper in the classroom.

         As the kids become more and more comfortable with the rich vocabulary, I start them on sorting activities.  By this time, we have a huge stack of cards (25-50) all relating to whatever unit we are studying.  I ask pairs of kids to work together to sort the cards into categories.  At the beginning of the year, I will suggest the categories for them (“how about farming, trade, religion, and government?”) but later on, they become quite good at determining the proper group names.  The students work together to sort the cards into the chosen categories.  When they’re done, my aide or I will take a look at what they’ve done. 

         We ask the kids to justify their organizational choices.  We do this for several reasons.  First, some words can go in several categories, and we are always interested in understanding why the kids chose one or the other.  Second, it’s a good way to make sure the kids really understand the words.  Third, we want the kids to be able to explain their thinking.  That way, if they put a word in an obviously wrong category, we can quickly grasp the nature of the error, and help repair the misunderstanding.

         What happens with the sorting card activities is that the kids engage in conversation with each other about the words and concepts that the words represent.  They begin to use the words themselves, both in our class discussions and in their writing.    I’ll hear them encouraging each other to use specific words:  Last week, as my kids were starting to write about Ancient Egyptian farming, Benny said to Alex, “they what canals?  They……you don’t want to say “made”, do you?  How about “dug”?

        My students don’t talk about making fabric, but weaving it, not writers but scribes, not strength but power, not winning a war, but conquering, or, in the alternative, victory.

...trot, run, jog...

         Sorting cards aren’t just for content-area vocabulary.  We develop series of cards to practice and learn different ways of saying things – not just similes, but similar acts.  For example, we might make an entire set of cards related to the way we get from one place to the other (amble, wander, climb, crawl, walk, trot, run, jog, fly, race, tiptoe, creep, dance, skip, gallop……)  I’ll mix those cards up with cards from other categories (ways of expressing words:  “yelp, whine, whimper, moan, gabble, whisper, yell, shout, screech…).

         I’ll put several categories of words together and have groups of kids sort them and reorganize them in like groups.  Just as happens with the content-area words, the kids begin to recognize the words, and use them, at first with prompts, and then independently. 

         As the kids use and re-use words, work with them and rework them, a great thing happens in their brains:  the words start popping forward as they think and speak.  More and more automatically, they choose specific  words instead of generic ones, richer vocabulary instead of bland words. 

         You might be wondering if the same lessons can be taught the standard way, with worksheets and mini-lessons.  Possibly, but not with as much engagement and sharing.  Maybe, but not with the relaxation and ease that comes when kids work together, without writing, to use words in ways that are new to them.  Perhaps, but I don’t think that the increase in vocabulary lasts, or that the synapses that are linked and refired when the kids talk together and experiment and think about how to use the words occurs.

         In a demanding classroom, kids use vocabulary, they don’t just memorize it.  When they use it, it becomes a part of them.

comprehension · demanding classroom · expressive language · high expectations · index cards · language deficits · learning disabled · receptive language · rigor · Sara Finegan · science · social studies · sorting cards · special education · standards · understanding · vocabulary

By Sara Finegan

          My colleague Colleen hates word walls and recently told our principal that she refuses to have one anymore.  What bothers her about word walls is the discrepency between the amount of time and energy she devotes to creating one and the amount of time and energy used by students when they are there. 

          As Colleen points out, there’s something incredibly irritating about a kid in June, who’s known about the existence of the word wall since October and still asks the teacher how to spell one of the words that is RIGHT THERE, not 10 feet away!

         I agree.  If the purpose of a word wall is to create a visible list of words to use for spelling, I want nothing to do with it.  In my classroom, we post several different kinds of words, for several different uses.

Sight Words 

         One of the first lists of words you will find in my classroom are the month’s expected sight words.  The words are some years written individually on index cards and some years typed onto colored paper, taped (blue painters tape, sticks well, won’t leave residue when removed) on our cupboard doors. 

          The kids keep each month’s list of sight words in a notebook as well, but we like a big list to be visible in the classroom for partners to go read during free or unstructured time. 

Tip:  I create a list of approximately 80 words per month for the kids to learn.  They are multi-syllabic words, and usually all fit into a phonological pattern – October’s words this year, for example, all use the “e” sounds, both long and short.  Every student tries to learn 20 of the words per week, so that by the end of the month, any kid in my classroom can walk up to the word wall and quickly read off every single one.

          Several years ago, I became frustrated by the fact that although I was teaching powerful vocabulary, my students weren’t using it, or if they were, they were  using it awkwardly.  After about a  month of gnashing my teeth and lecturing my kids about their lack of attention to my teaching, I stepped back and began to observe how they did use language in both written and oral expression.

         Turned out, although they knew the words if they saw them in text, they didn’t know how to use them on their own.   It’s  one thing to recognize a word; it’s quite another to retrieve it and  apply it in speech.

          In order for a student with special needs to be able to  use the vocabulary I teach, they need to be able to have a context.  And that is what led to the second kind of word wall you might find in my classroom.

Words in Context

         When I create a context-based word wall, I am setting up a system for kids to be able to see and practice the use of the words.  This kind of word wall will group words by category or topic, rather than in alphabetical order or by grammatical form.  Thus, you might find the following word groupings:

 Synonyms and Precise Choices 

We all know how difficult it can be to direct kids away from what I call “cotton ball words,” by which I mean the soft, fluffy, and really imprecise vocabulary they so willingly employ in speech and writing:  words like “stuff”, “things”, “had”, “was”, “can”, “went”. 

         When we teach students that the use of precise language to convey ideas demonstrates intelligence and proficiency, we cannot expect them to be immediately able to retrieve the more powerful nouns and verbs we’d like them to be using.   We have to show them their choices.

          Thus, another type of word wall is one which is developed over time in the classroom, and customized based on the needs you see in your students.  This wall of words will contain a topic heading and a list of words that can be  used.  For example, “Say”:

          Or, we might have an entire section about “getting from one place to another quickly,” that has words such as:  gallop,  slide, run, trot,  jog, race, fly, canter, zip, skate, roll.  Or perhaps we need to use words that are more interesting than “good”, so we have a list that contains these words:  excellent, fabulous, wonderful, terrific, lovely, magnificent, beautiful, fresh, tasty, sweet.

          Now, Colleen’s complaint can still be repeated with these kinds of word walls.   A list of words in and of itself is not going to lead to use or knowledge.  But if we use the word wall regularly, so will the kids. 

We Model How to Use the Wall

           Kids are not as likely to look to a list of words for spelling help when they can just as easily ask someone.  But they are likely to look to a list of words for vocabulary choices if we model how it’s done and get them in the habit. 

           When we are talking or writing, I will frequently pause as though I can’t think of a word.  I use my “teacher is puzzled” face, and tell the kids I’m having trouble thinking of the right way to say something.  They are always willing to help. 

            If I can describe to my students the kind of word I need, they will almost invariably go to the word wall in context and help me find one.  Thus, for example: 

• If I say “well, I want a word that shows how the Egyptian farmers made canals,” more than one student will glance at the wall and yell out “dug!” or “excavated!”
• If I indicate that I’m looking for a precise way to describe the kind of person Draco Malfoy is, I’ll get plenty of offers of “evil”, “nasty”, “cruel”, and “viscious”.
• And if I say I don’t want to repeat the word “important” in a paragraph, someone will help me find “essential” or “crucial”.

         Once we get kids in the habit of looking to word walls for choices, they are far more likely to use them in their partner and independent work.

          Of course, you just KNOW they will still ask you how to spell them!

demanding classroom · high expectations · learning disabled · modeling · rigor · rigorous instruction · Sara Finegan · sight words · special education · standards · synonyms · vocabulary · word wall

 By Sara Finegan

          I cannot stress enough the importance of teaching kids how to talk and listen about meaningful things.  The practice of explicitly teaching vocabulary, modeling proper use of words and word choices, and helping kids learn how to phrase their thoughts must be embedded in our instruction and included in all of our planning.  This applies to every single subject area.

         When I think about what I want the kids in my class to be able to DO in their oral and written communication, I come up with the following skills: 

• To summarize, in their own words, what they are doing, reading, and learning, or what someone else told them.

• To describe with powerful and explicit vocabulary events, ideas, and feelings.

• To use complex sentences and grammatical concepts to convey ideas.

•  To describe their thinking process as they approach a problem or a task.

•  To understand and be able to present or identify an idea with supporting details.

•  To organize and share their thinking in an organized fashion.

•  To be able to engage in interactive discussions about meaningful topics using responsive listening and accountable talk.

         I’m sure there’s more, but that’s what I come up with right now.  Daunting, no?  Especially if you take a look at what the kids can do, language-wise, when they walk into your classroom for the first time.   

         If your students are anything like mine, the first months of talk sound something like this:

• “The guy went, well, let’s go get some stuff to eat, so they did.”

• <shrug>  (one of my favorite answers to any question)

• “She wanted to go to that one place, so they did.”

• “The Ancient Mesopotamia people had canals for to water the ground where they grew stuff.”  (this from a child who was asked to use the word “canals” in relation to Mesopotamian farming) 

          And how many of us have prepared social studies or science worksheets and received them back with one-word answers?

          I send them back.

          In separate posts, I’ll describe what I work on with my students to raise the level, depth, and bredth of their use of language. 

          In a demanding classroom.

demanding classroom · high expectations · learning disabled · modeling · rigor · rigorous instruction · Sara Finegan · special education · standards · vocabulary

 By Sara Finegan

          By far the most common deficits we see in the special ed classroom are problems with reading.  The vast majority of our students do not read close to grade level, and this impairs their ability to make progress in the general education curriculum independently. 

           Reading skills have very little to do with intelligence and everything to do with the way the brain perceives the task.  I have had more than one student classified as GATE (Gifted and Talented)  in the fifth or sixth grade, who reads at the first grade level. 

          The problem with reading deficits is not only how they pervade all aspects of the curriculum but that they discourage most kids from doing the work that will improve the skills:  reading.    Most of the kids who don’t read well also don’t read.  At least, not until they get to a demanding classroom.

          And why should they?  It’s exhausting, halting, stuttering, discouraging, boring, and one never ceases to be reminded that one doesn’t do it well. 

          There are a gazillion programs out there which purport to (and often do!) improve students’ ability to read.  There are books and books, articles and more articles about interventions and strategies that work.   I particularly enjoy attending workshops and other professional development opportunities dealing with reading instruction.  I collect as much information and as many ideas as I can, and use them in a myriad of ways to support reading in the classroom. 

Types of reading skill

          Reading skills can be boiled to several types, and it’s important that we address all of them, with rigor, in the demanding classroom.  They are as follows:

1.   Decoding 

         Obviously, phonemic awareness and the understanding of the sounds the letters make and how they become words is important.  Our students need to be aware of the long and short vowel sounds, blends, and other aspects of the decoding process.  It’s the cornerstone of the mechanics of reading, after all.   

           Or is it?  I’m not so sure.  Certainly, it’s an important skill to have.  But how often do good readers decode words, really?  I paid attention to my own reading for a week, and I only decoded once – and it was a latin word.  What I mostly did was…

             …recognize words.  Which brings me to the next type of reading mechanics:

2.   Sight words.

         Turns out that in my reading, I mostly scan over the text and recognize each of the words.  I don’t sound them out, even the big words, because I know them already as soon as I see them.  Most people I know who are good readers do the same thing. 

          It also turns out that our students, the ones with profound reading deficits, don’t recognize most words.  Sometimes it’s because of visual processing slowness, or because of visual memory issues.  Sometimes it’s because they don’t see a lot of words very often.  After all, if you  never read, dreaded reading, you wouldn’t know many words. 

         Whatever the reason for a low bank of sight words in ones brain, this must be addressed, intensively, consistently, and with the student involved in setting measurable goals. 

           This year, each of my 5th and 6th grade students has decided that they want to increase their sight word vocabulary by 15 words a week, which translates to about 60 words per month, or 600 for the whole school year. 

           I get to pick the words.  And I don’t pick easy ones – the one-syllable, simple words that occur most frequently will be picked up automatically as we increase our reading stamina and practice fluency.  I pick the two and three-syllable words that trip kids up.  I’ll post October’s list somewhere in here, I promise. 

           Every child gets sight words flashcards to carry around from home to school and back, and they are assiduous in practicing with each other daily while I’m taking roll or collecting papers.  They got their parents involved by asking them to sign a “reading helper” contract – so now, parents or siblings work with them at home.  This is not as easy as it sounds:  some of my students come from families where English is not spoken in the home or where the parents aren’t literate.  This is where older and younger siblings, cousins, and neighbors help out.  Somehow or another, every one of my students mastered 80 words between September 8 and October 1.  EIGHTY!  

          Confidence increases exponentially when kids can recognize words, especially the hard words that always made them stumble, crash and burn in previous reading projects.  You can bet that the kids are more eager to read independently now.

3.   Reading fluency.

          Fluency is the ability to read quickly and smoothly, with inflection, not stumbling over too many words (we all do when we read out loud, at least occasionally), infusing drama into the voice. 

          Most kids with reading deficits don’t have the voice in their heads telling them the story as they read.  They read like robots, one word at a time, staccato.  There’s no feeling, no expression, and certainly not a lot of attention to what’s going on in the text – the kids are too busy just dealing with the mechanics of reading.

         Until and unless we work with them on reading fluency, they aren’t going to hear that voice in their heads (the healthy kind!).  They aren’t going to enjoy reading, and they aren’t going to have the strength and stamina to figure out much of what is going on in the story.

         My favorite reading fluency program is Read Naturally, which I think has been around forever, or at least a long time.  And no, I don’t get paid to write about it.  Read Naturally is a series of stories on tape and on paper, which kids listen to and read out loud over and over and over again, practicing speed and inflection.  There’s a timed component to it that many teachers use to help kids build their speed of reading, but I never have managed to do much with it, and I don’t actually use the tapes very much either.  It’s the one-page human interest stories that  we focus on.

          Read Naturally text goes from primer to the higher-grade levels of reading, moving up by half-grade levels.   The stories start out with a larger font, shorter text, and move into smaller font, more complex sentences, and longer paragraphs gradually through the levels.  It seems to progress at just the right measure for kids.

          This year, my kids all set a fluency goal as well, which is related to their ability to decode and recognize words, of course.  They aimed high – they all want to be reading at grade level by the end of the year.  This is certainly doable if we are talking about decoding and fluency –if the kids do the work consistently. 

          So far, they’re all on track with their goals to increase by a half-grade level in fluency every six weeks.  I  have advised them that the higher the level, the more difficult each text will be to practice and master fluently, and that we may need to tweak how often we work at it – but I have not said anything about adjusting their goals or expectations.

           This is the first year we have all tackled fluency with such rigor, and it’s because last year, one of my students jumped from a first grade reading level to the fifth grade in a matter of months by using Read Naturally every day at home and school.  This inspired his friends, and now they’re all gung-ho.  They eagerly ask to read to me every morning, and are mastering between two and three stories per week so far.    The amount of work they are putting in at school and at home means they are increasing something else, which leads me to the fourth leg on the stool we call reading technique…

 4.   Reading stamina.

         Reading stamina is the ability to read for long periods of time with focus and purpose.  Avid readers like me can read all day, even taking our books to the bathroom or holding them while we cook dinner.  Students with reading deficits are often lucky to be able to read for five minutes at a time.  Last year, my student David, who has both ADHD and autism, lasted 11 SECONDS at a time with text at the primer level.  I still dream about that.

          I have not, I confess, spent a lot of time working on stamina as an isolated skill.  I get caught up in some of the more engaging aspects of reading instruction – and by that I mean activities in which I get to engage with my students.  Stamina is something that one develops solo.  And I find that it increases exponentially as students develop the technical and cognitive skills to read and understand. 

          These days, David reads for about 12 minutes at a time.   With a third grade text.  He will be moving up to level 3.5 next week.

Turn that rickety stool into an armchair.

          Reading is a skill that we all rely on in life.  For some, it’s an unwieldy and rickety stool that’s missing a leg and whose seat comes unscrewed every few days.  For others, it’s a cushy, comfy armchair in whose depths we can sink and disappear into worlds and characters without limit.  The one thing we all have in common is that we need something to rest our butts on, and legs to hold us up. 

         In a demanding classroom, reading instruction is precisely-customized to individual student needs, and most of the time is devoted to practicing.  In a demanding classroom, students participate in setting goals and measuring progress.

decoding · demanding classroom · fluency · GATE · high expectations · learning disabled · phonemic awareness · Read Naturally · reading deficits · reading mechanics · reading stamina · rigor · rigorous instruction · Sara Finegan · sight words · special education · standards · vocabulary

By Sara Finegan

           When I first started teaching, I thought that the school’s Speech /Language Pathologist was pulling kids out of the classroom once or twice a week to work on things like stuttering, lisps, and other impediments.  It was several years before I caught on to the fact that more and more kids these days, both in and out of special education, have expressive and receptive language deficits, which is quite different from my initial perceptions.

            That was back when I had no idea what the different types of learning disabilities were.  (Isn’t it odd that in the entire body of coursework we follow to get certificated in special education, most of us are never explicitly taught what each of the disabilities are?  When was the last time you discussed the nature of “Specific Learning Disability” or “Non-verbal Learning Disorder,” or “auditory memory weaknesses”?  It’s the weirdest thing, and one that if we’re smart, we’ll address on our own by doing simple research and talking to our Speech/Language and Psychology experts.) 

Language deficits defined 

            Expressive language deficits mean that a child experiences difficulty retrieving and using the words and grammar necessary to convey ideas.  Receptive language deficits means that a child struggles to understand language, the meaning of words, and the intent of the speaker.

            I have a theory about these deficits; that they involve both biological and sociological factors.   Hear me out.

             Think about the generation we’re working with.  Both parents generally work at least one job, sometimes two.  In-depth conversations, where adults model interactive communication and their thinking processes as they address world and family issues, conflict, and decision-making, tend to be less frequent and often non-existent when the family schedule is filled with activities, work, and time constraints.  What passes for conversation in many of our homes is really just direction-giving and reporting-out:

• “Put the eggs in the fridge and watch your brother.”
• “Get dressed.  You don’t want to be late for school.  I don’t have time to drive you.”
•  “You pick up Timmy today, right?  I have to work late.”

            For kids who already have difficulty with language, this is not a scenario designed to support improvement.  Kids don’t have much opportunity to talk and be engaged in discussions.  Parents don’t have time to think aloud or model how they think about what they do, read, or see on TV.    As a result, an area of need quickly becomes and remains a weakness which impairs not just communication, but learning.

             These deficits are rather unobtrusive and you won’t notice them right away, often not until it’s time for a child to talk or write about what s/he is learning.  Even then, if you accept language like “he got some stuff at the store” instead of “while he was at the store, he bought three oranges and a can of tomato sauce”, you’re not going to be pay much attention to it.

            And there’s the key:  Too many of us accept vague language and do not demand specificity and the use of powerful vocabulary, because we either don’t realize what’s going on, or don’t have time to figure out how to change things, or figure that expressive and/or receptive language deficits are something the Speech Pathologist is going to handle. 

Demand specific and powerful vocabulary 

            In a demanding classroom, specific vocabulary is taught and used, word choice is emphasized, and instruction provides daily opportunities to talk meaningfully and practice expressing and understanding one another in every subject area. 

            I’ll be writing about some things that have worked in my classroom.  I want to hear what you do as well.  It’s good to have a library of terrific ideas to pull out and select from each year.

demanding classroom · expressive language · high expectations · language deficits · learning disabilities · learning disabled · receptive language · rigor · rigorous instruction · Sara Finegan · special education · speech pathology · standards · vocabulary